Dancers' Body Book by Allegra Kent

Ballet dancers have the strongest, most beautiful, probably the most envied bodies in the world. How do they stay slender and willowy while maintaining the extraordinary energy it takes to perform night after night? Can a nondancer or an amateur attain a dancer's figure and a dancer's vitality? And keep it?

Here, in The Dancers' Body Book, the legendary ballerina Allegra Kent discloses the health, weight-watching, and relaxation secrets of some of the world's greatest ballet dancers -- from Suzanne Farrell and Fernando Bujones to Darci Kistler and Madame Alexandra Danilova. Combining them with two well-balanced diets -- one to lose weight by and one to live by -- and an exercise regimen that can be tailored to the individual, she provides a fabulous fitness program for everyone who longs to be slimmer, healthier, and more energetic.

Fourteen varied menus incorporate delicious recipes from the dancers themselves (such as Jacques D'Amboise's Wonderful Dinner Salad and Dierdre Carberry's Almond Meringue Kisses), along with calorie guides and advice on how to create additional menus using your own favorite dishes. Helpful discussions on sports and exercise systems -- ranging from jogging and swimming to the sophisticated "Pilates" workout -- are also included, and in a special chapter entitled "A Healthy Outlook," the dancers talk candidly on such issues as smoking, anorexia, vitamins, doctors, massage, junk foods, fad diets, and injuries.

Dancers take meticulous care of all their equipment because training and performance depend on it. Of course, the most essential piece of equipment, the body, needs the most care of all, and that is what this book is about: how to take care of the world's greatest machine.

Allegra Kent joined the New York City Ballet at the age of fifteen and was a principal dancer with the company for thirty years, during which time she created a number of starring roles in ballets by Balanchine and Robbins. The mother of two daughters and a son, she is also the author of Allegra Kent's Water Beauty Book.

Allegra Kent, one of the New York City Ballet's most celebrated ballerinas, danced many roles created for her by George Balanchine, as well as the role of Odette in Swan Lake, She lives in New York City.
Emily Arnold McCully, Author and illustrator Emily McCully was born in Galesburg, Illinois and raised on Long Island. Her father Wade was a writer of network radio shows and her mother Kathryn was a teacher. When she was a child, she began writing and illustrating her own stories, bound them and gave them a copyright date. She also illustrated postcards, greeting cards, scenery, portraits and copies of the old masters and would then set up a stand at the end of her driveway to sell them. McCully attended Pembroke University studying theater and art history. After graduation, McCully held a variety of odd jobs in the art field that included being a commercial artist, a designer of paperback covers and illustrating advertisements. When one of her illustrations was seen on an advertisement in the subway, she was asked to illustrate Greg Panetta's "Sea Beach Express." She accepted that offer and went on to illustrate over 100 children's books. In 1969, she illustrated de Jong's "Journey from the Peppermint Express," which was the first children's book to receive the National Book Award. McCully had her first solo venture with "Picnic," which is a wordless picture book about a family of mice, and it won the Christopher Award in 1985. "Mirette on the High Wire" introduced the dare devil tightrope walker, Mirette, and won the Caldecott Medal in 1993. Some of her other titles in include "Amazing Felix," "Crossing the New Bridge," "Grandmas at the Lake," "My Real Family," and "Pirate Queen.